Most charges dropped months after evacuation

Saturday

Dec 29, 2012 at 7:14 PM

Most gun and counterfeit document-related charges have been dropped against a Houma man who was arrested in August after police evacuated several buildings at his apartment complex as they investigated whether he had bombs.

Katie UrbaszewskiStaff Writer

Most gun and counterfeit document-related charges have been dropped against a Houma man who was arrested in August after police evacuated several buildings at his apartment complex as they investigated whether he had bombs.However, Michael J. Hebert, 61, still sits in jail because the holidays have delayed his case, his attorney said.Last week, federal officials charged Hebert with owning a gun with a barrel shorter than the length required by law, New Orleans-based attorney Robert Pastor said.After that, the Terrebonne District Attorney's Office dropped the remaining charges against him: 19 counts of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and 10 counts of unlawful possession of fraudulent documents, records show.Pastor said he's not sure if the statute of limitations on Hebert's 1990 felony mail-fraud conviction had expired.Hebert's arrest was the result of federal agents overreacting to the items in a former gun salesman and collector's home, Pastor argued.The federal agents who searched Hebert's apartment at the Landing at Bayou Cane, 1803 Martin Luther King Blvd., “made a big hoopla of all these weapons,” Pastor said. “Yeah — he was a gun collector.” The fraudulent documents, which Terrebonne Sheriff Jerry Larpenter said were counterfeit credentials and badges of federal agencies, were marked “for display purposes only,” Pastor said.Hebert's complex was evacuated while investigators inspected potential bombs, which they later announced were not real, the Terrebonne Parish Sheriff's Office said at the time. Those were “paperweights,” Pastor said.The U.S. Attorney's Office in New Orleans charged Hebert Dec. 21 with having a Stag Arms Model Stag-15, .223-caliber semiautomatic rifle with a barrel less than 16 inches long, the office said in a news release. U.S. attorney officials couldn't be reached for comment Friday.Pastor said Hebert told him he has an extension for the gun's barrel inside his apartment. But Pastor said he has not seen it himself.Hebert gave investigators with the Sheriff's Office and the U.S. Secret Service permission to search his home, according to a statement filed in court records from an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. That department investigated the gun violation.“He acknowledged the firearm's barrel was less than the legal limit,” wrote Agent Patrick Solomon. “He further advised that he was very familiar with firearms and firearms laws due to the fact that he was previously a federal firearms licensee and firearms dealer.”Hebert used to own a local gun shop and now works as a welder, Pastor said.He's sitting in jail on a bond of at least $100,000, the attorney said. He's not in the Terrebonne Parish jail, but Pastor declined to say where he is.In court, even the U.S. attorney was adamant that Pastor did not need to be detained, Pastor said, but his bond has not yet been reduced.

Staff Writer Katie Urbaszewski can be reached at 448-7617 or katie.urbaszewski@dailycomet.com.